How Good-Deed Videos Work to Inspire Kindness in Others

Meet the friends behind GiveBackFilms.

A $200 tip for a hotel maid. Free car repairs for the adoptive parents of two special-needs daughters. A $2,000 engagement ring for a cash-strapped college couple. These are just a few of Kyle Orrefice and Josh Gibson’s good deeds that they documented for their video channel, GiveBackFilms, on YouTube.

“We can personally help only a certain number of people,” says Kyle, 18, a high school senior in Atlanta. “But we’re hoping the videos will start a movement of good deeds.”

The first video, in which Josh, 25, films Kyle giving $100 bills to eight homeless people in Salt Lake City, has been viewed more than three million times. “Instead of giving money, I bought [the homeless] food,” one viewer wrote on the GiveBackFilms online comment thread about his own gesture inspired by the guys. “This has been one of my dreams,” wrote another. “I want to make enough money so that I can give back.”

Kyle and Josh post a new video each week, showing acts of kindness both simple—tipping a hairstylist $100, paying for someone’s gas—and more involved—buying new clothes and groceries for a homeless couple, paying for job-interview training and a two-week hotel stay.

In January, Kyle brought on Udi’s Gluten-Free Foods to sponsor three recent actions. The guys are now looking for more partners to help build the buzz about GiveBackFilms.
Kyle says, “We hope people realize [by watching the videos] that the feeling of giving back is better than the feeling of receiving.”